I managed to post this story about sunbathing gone wrong during a time I went to the beach myself. Despite freaking myself out about undead attacks, I’m happy to say I encountered nothing worse than seagulls hellbent on eating my pretzel rods.

Hell of a cliffhanger, huh? I truly hate to do this, but it’ll be several weeks until I post the follow-up. I actually don’t like to break up stories like this. It irritates my sense of tidiness. But next up is the 500th comic, and I wanted to do something special. In fact, the 500th comic is not one but five! Hope you enjoy…

Cape May, New Jersey is one of my favorite places in the world, a beach town that is itself an historical landmark, replete with Victorian-era houses. It also has some World War II history. Just outside of town, a strange, rectangular concrete structure occupies the beach. For many years, it was partially submerged in the sea and inaccessible. But beach reclamation has now left it standing openly on the sand like a mysterious Egyptian ruin. In my young mind, it was the entrance to a secret underground lair populated by lizard people or transforming robots. In reality, it was once a gun emplacement bunker from which the U.S. military maintained a wary eye on the sea for any errant German U-Boats. All you’ll actually find inside the concrete walls these days is sand and seagull poop. But I think it still inspired me to write this story, which I didn’t even realize until completing the comic.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the jet pack astronaut I use for Red is a figure I actually had during my childhood. Sadly, I noticed while photographing this comic that one of her arms had split, a common ailment in old LEGO minifigures. So, after a quick replacement, Red is now MOSTLY my original figure. BTW, Red once chastised me, the author, for not giving her more to do in the comic. Hopefully, this storyline will finally address that!

This is finally the end of a storyline that started way back in August, back when the sun was out, the air was warm and I was relaxing on the beach when not taking photos of the Hamburger Hatch late at night or avoiding earthquakes! Granted, I took several weeks off from the comic since then. Next up is probably the most ambitious story I’ve ever done, in terms of the sheer amount of locations used. It’s a somewhat epic storyline called “Bootlegs.”

I don’t have much of the LEGO I had when I was a kid, but one thing I have had all these years is the minifigure that I use for Red (hence the completely worn, white symbol on her chest). I didn’t have her hair back then, of course, but she has been “that red astronaut with the jetpack” in my collection since the mid-1980s. Of course, her jetpack is nowhere to be seen on this page. :-p

One of these days, I imagine I’ll go back to posting two comics a week. Next comic (whenever that is), you might just get the answer to Mikey’s question… Oh, hey, it’s comic #420. Here’s to you, potheads!

For some reason, I kept falling asleep every time I sat down to work on this comic. Hopefully, the same thing doesn’t happen when you read it. ;-D - This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. —– WWW.SPACETHECOMIC.COM